


Ten Little Roosters

by thefigureinthecorner



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Angst, Based on the actual Ten Little Roosters thing that RT made, Blood, Dark, Death, Hurt/Comfort, but not a whole lot of comfort really, by a few i mean a lot, like i changed a few things so be prepared for that, the first chapter is close to the original but the rest not as much, this is so much darker than the actual thing just saying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 20:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5757583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefigureinthecorner/pseuds/thefigureinthecorner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Burnie wanted was a normal banquet-- something to celebrate the company, something to get everyone together. Only ten had arrived, but the thought was what counted. But oh, god, he hadn’t wanted this. Not this.</p><p>Ten Little Roosters could have been so much darker than it is and seeing as they're a company mainly focused around comedy I understand why RT wrote it the way they did but I wanted to explore the possibility of it having been a darker story, as if they actually were trapped with a killer. It's still gonna have some humor, obviously, seeing as this is RT we're talking about, but I just really wanted to make a darker version.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And Then There Were Nine

All Burnie wanted was a normal banquet-- something to celebrate the company, something to get everyone together. Only ten had arrived, but the thought was what counted. But oh, god, he hadn’t wanted this. Not this.

It had all started okay, with the expected eccentricities of any Rooster Teeth event; Chris dressed as a Hobbit, Lindsay and Michael arguing over something or another, Adam getting a fork stuck in his beard, Gus forgoing champagne for beer, Barbara on the cat piano.

And then Michael began his speech.

“I have a special announcement,” he began. “If everyone would please look under their seats, you’ll all find an envelope.” He gestured around the room with his champagne flute. Everything was quiet for a moment, aside from the sounds of chairs and papers shuffling.

“Sweet, Oprah car,” Adam joked as he pulled his envelope up.

“Aww, Burnie, are we getting bonuses?” Barbara looked at hers with a grin as she moved to open it.

Burnie laughed, opening his as well. “Absolutely not.”

The grin faded as he saw what was inside the envelope. A photo of Shannon McCormick’s frozen body, with a note written in red-- “Your future has come back to haunt you, Burnie.”

“Michael, what the hell is this,” he asked, just a hint of fear creeping into his voice.

“That’s right,” said Michael, pointing around the room. “Look upon your sins.”

The room fell into solemn silence as people opened their own envelopes. Gus found that his was Baby Gus, impaled with a fork; for Adam, Kerry, bruised and bloodied and propped against a wall. An Edgar for Ryan, a Meg for Gavin, Kdin for Lindsay and Blaine for Barbara and Josh’s slit throat oozing blood for Chris. Miles’ was blank, and he looked up in confusion.

“Mine has nothing on it,” he said, hand twitching.

“Oh, shit, I knew I had an extra,” Michael said, jumping to hand the correct envelope to Miles. He continued his speech. “You’ve all got blood on your hands. And now, you’re all going to pay.”

“It’s just another blank,” Miles interrupted, frowning as he stared at the contents of the second envelope. Michael shrugged; he didn’t have any others.

“Okay, Baby Gus was an accident,” Gus reasoned, sounding indignant. “The fork slipped, I was acquitted, you’re not allowed to talk about it.”

“Yeah, and Shannon was killed for science! That’s, like, one of the top three or four ways to die!” Burnie also attempted to reason, though he knew he was grasping at straws.

“Look, I don’t care why you did it,” Michael interjected before the room could dissolve into chaos. “The point is, I’m gonna get filthy fuckin’ rich from turning you assholes in, so fuck you,” Lindsay, “fuck you,” Gus, “and fuck _you,_ ” Adam, “and fuck all of you.”

“Hey, why don’t you suck a dick?” Barbara piped up, glaring at Michael.

“Why don’t you suck _two_ dicks?!”

“No, you, but-- five dicks!”

“You’re sucking eight dicks, from every direction, just like an omni-directional-dick-suck-fest!”

“Okay, we get it, stop trying to one-up each other on the dick sucking quotas!” Burnie said, exasperated. “Let’s all agree that, as adults, we all suck a lot of dick.” There were murmurs of agreement from everyone in the room, and the argument was left at that.

“Hold on,” Ryan broke in, speaking for the first time. "Michael, what’s to stop us from just killing you and burning the body?”

“Well first of all, I have this,” Michael said, pulling a gun from his suit pocket and waving it at the group. People began ducking behind tables and exclaiming in shock. “And secondly,” Michael went on, “while all of you have killed, only one of you has committed cold-blooded murder.” He paused to take a sip of his champagne, and people glanced around the room at each other. “And if that person tries to kill me-” Michael cut off again, but not to drink; he coughed, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. “If they-” More coughing.

“Stop choking, we can’t understand you!” Burnie yelled. Michael didn’t stop, instead looking at his glass in confusion and collapsing to the ground, the choking growing more frantic as he gasped for breath.

“Michael, my boy!” Gavin felt a surge of panic course through him as he ran up to his best friend, prying the gun and the glass away from him and trying to loosen his tie and collar.

“Gavin--” Michael wheezed as Gavin began fretting over him. His struggles began to grow weaker and black dots danced in his vision and god, he couldn’t breathe--

Gavin pressed an ear to Michael’s chest as he stopped moving.

“He’s dead,” he yelled, a look of despair twisting his features. His head snapped up. “Gus, you killed him!”

“What!” Gus stood, frowning.

“Well, you gave him the drink!” Gavin’s voice cracked on the last word.

“Well, I didn’t know it was poisoned!” Gus stepped forwards and inspected the glass. “And, look, there’s beard hairs in this. It had to have been Gilby!”

“Hey, I don’t need your beard profiling,” Adam said, voice serious as he rested his palms on the table. “And if I was the murderer, do you really think I would go rubbing my beard all over the murder weapon?”

“Well, wouldn’t you?” Burnie said, though his gaze kept travelling to Michael’s body.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Adam said, looking at him as if he were an idiot. Everyone conceded to that, and the issue was dropped.

“Why don’t we just get the hell out of here?” Barbara suggested, looking around. Everyone got up to leave, wanting just as much as her to get away from what had just happened. Gavin hesitated, glancing back at Michael sadly. His hands were still in position as if he were grasping at his throat, but he was still and lifeless and going blue in the lips and fingers. He slowly turned to join the group of people by the door, shoulders sagging and eyes downcast.

Miles jiggled the doorknob, hands trembling as he realized it wouldn’t budge. “It’s locked,” he murmured, turning to Gus. He grabbed Gus by the jacket. “It’s locked, we’re trapped in here with the killer!”

“Hey, what is this?” Burnie pushed through the two of them, squinting at the note on the door. “Ten Little Roosters? Gus--”

“That’s not mine!” Gus retorted, backing away from Burnie and staring at the note.

“What?” Burnie stepped closer, reading through it. “It looks like… a list. It looks like it’s telling us how everyone’s going to die; look, see, ‘one choked on his rage;’ that’s gotta be Michael.”

One thing became apparent to all of them as they read the note, however.

This wasn't going to stop at just Michael.

~~~

_Ten little roosters, all gathered to dine;_

_One choked on his rage, and then there were nine._

 

_Nine little roosters, now running from fate;_

_One tripped over themselves, and then there were eight._

 

_Eight little roosters, two others in heaven;_

_One was martyred, and then there were seven._

 

_Seven little roosters, one liked to draw dicks;_

_Life imitated art, and then there were six._

 

_Six little roosters, often streamed live;_

_One died to scale, and then there were five._

 

_Five little roosters, one trapped in the floor;_

_One ran out of air, and then there were four._

 

_Four little roosters, still trying to flee;_

_One got what they wanted, and then there were three._

 

_Three little roosters, one died of a pun;_

_The killer was killed, and then there was one._

 


	2. And Then There Were Eight

“Okay, new plan. Nobody leaves until we know who the killer is,” Burnie said, taking a shaky breath. “If we’re all stuck in here, then nobody else can get killed, because we’re all here looking at each other.” A lie; someone had already died in front of all of them. Nobody bothered pointing that out.

“Guys, my sword is glowing.” Everyone turned to look at Chris.

“Dammit, Chris, we don’t have time for this,” Gus yelled, throwing his hands up. Chris shook his head.

“No, no, I’m onto something, see-- it only glows when there’s evil around, so if I just-”

The room went dark.

There was nothing but the sound of screaming and chaos as everyone tried to flee the room in a blind panic. It was one thing to just be in the room with a murderer; it was another thing entirely when the room was pitch black.

When the lights came back on a few minutes later, Chris was left standing alone in the middle of it, waving his sword wildly in front of him with arms that felt like lead and a racing heart.

“Are you frightened?” He asked himself this in a trembling voice. “Yes,” he answered, though nobody else was there. He opened his mouth to continue, but snapped it back shut immediately, shoulders slumped. “God, stop talking to yourself, you weirdo. This is why nobody likes you.”

~~~

Ryan found himself in a toolshed, having stumbled his way there in the dark. He paused to catch his breath for a moment before settling his gaze upon the shelf of wrenches and screwdrivers and other items of the like. He shrugged, making his way across the room towards it. It couldn’t hurt to get some stuff for self-defense, he figured, and some of these tools could be useful.

A click alerted him to someone else’s presence, and he turned slowly to be faced with a gun pointed straight at him.

“So you’re the murderer,” he said, trying to keep up a calm appearance despite his brain firing off every panic signal it had. “Burnie.”

“No, but I’m trying to find whoever it is. See, I’m an undercover cop.” Ryan raised an eyebrow at this, relaxing just barely as the gun was lowered.

“How do I know you’re not just making this up so I won’t suspect you?”

“No, really, I am. I’ve been on this person’s trail for years now. They killed my partner. This whole thing-- this was my plan to catch whoever it was.”

“So-- so Michael’s an actor in all of this, then? He’s not really dead?” For a moment, Ryan felt hopeful that maybe his friend was going to be alright; that everything could be okay and they would all survive the night.

“No, Michael really is dead,” Burnie said, and Ryan’s heart felt as heavy as Burnie’s voice sounded in that moment.

“So that’s it, then. We’re actually trapped in here with a murderer who could have nine victims tonight. All of us-- we’re going to die, aren’t we?”

“Unfortunately, it’s looking that way. I didn’t realize Michael would die that quickly; he wasn’t supposed to die there. Nobody was. We were all supposed to survive but the killer was too fast about formulating their plan and now all of this has gotten out of hand. They wrote that poem; without my ever knowing, they planned for this whole night to go their way. I’m sorry.”

Ryan took a deep breath. For just a moment, he’d thought this whole thing could be one big joke, but now the situation was sinking in and he leaned back against the counter behind him as he fought back the panic that rose in him once again. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna go, then. Better for us to split up than round ourselves up for the killer. You should look for a place to hide.”

He gripped the staple gun and left, not looking back at Burnie.

~~~

“Barb? What are you doing?”

Barbara looked up from the floor as Lindsay walked into the room. “You, uh, might want to join me up here on the chair,” she replied. “There are a shitload of poisonous things, like, everywhere in here.”

Lindsay looked down and jumped at the sight of the scorpion on the ground. “Oh, Jesus,” she hissed, jumping up onto the chair next to Barbara’s. “Why are there scorpions on the floor?”

“Someone let out Joel’s scorpions and snakes and other things,” Barbara said, shrugging. Lindsay noticed that the cat piano was resting on the desk.

“So, uh… you brought the cat piano?” Lindsay asked, trying to break the tense silence.

“Well, duh. Who knows what use it could have?”

Lindsay didn’t bother arguing that, instead going quiet and staring at the venomous creatures that crawled along the floor. She turned back to Barbara.

“Let’s split up; they can’t chase us both. You take that door; I’ll take the other.” Barbara nodded, and with that, the two jumped from their safe spots and ran as fast and as far as they both could.

~~~

Gavin gasped for breath as he ran, spindly legs carrying him in random directions until he wasn’t entirely certain where in the office he was. He jogged to a halt when he thought he saw someone out of the corner of his eye and, lo and behold, there was Adam, beard caught in a doorway.

“Christ, Adam, you startled me,” he said, panting. Adam rolled his eyes.

“Thank God you’re here, though. Help me get my beard out of the door.”

Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “What if this is a trap?”

“Excuse me?”

“How do I know you’re not gonna just stab me as soon as I get near you?”

“I’m not, dammit! There’s a killer in here and I’m a sitting duck like this, just get me out!” Gavin noted the panic in his eyes and sighed, moving to open the door.

“Alright.”

Once Adam was freed, he began smoothing out his beard and rubbing his chin where it had gotten sore from all the tugging.

“What’s the plan, then?” Gavin asked, looking around him for anything useful.

“My office. I’ve got a bow and arrow stashed there. Not the best weapon, but better than nothing.” Gavin nodded, steeling his jaw and following behind Adam.

They hadn’t made it far when they heard a scream.

“That-- was that Barbara?” Gavin looked alarmed. Adam shrugged, a similar expression on his face. Gavin looked in the direction of the sound, then back to Adam. “You go on ahead; I’m going to check this out.” He had watched Michael die right in front of him; if he could prevent anybody else from suffering the same fate as his best friend had then he was sure as hell gonna try. Before Adam could respond, he was already off and running.

As he rounded the corner to the top of the stairwell, he ran into Ryan, literally. Ryan let out a small noise of surprise and Gavin a squawk, and suddenly there was empty space beneath his feet and he was tumbling backwards and away from Ryan’s outstretched hand and then he felt like he was floating.

Ryan watched in horror as Gavin tumbled down the stairs in a mass of tangled limbs and sickening cracks. He finally rolled to a halt in the stairway landing after what felt an eternity but really was the span of only a second, and Ryan ran down to him to kneel beside him.

His neck was at an odd angle and he had bruises forming on his face and arms, and his limbs stuck out in ways that they definitely weren’t mean to. Blood oozed lazily from a gash on his forehead, dripping down his forehead. What alarmed Ryan was how absolutely still and quiet the lad was; no breath, no pained groans, no screaming, not a sound passed through his lips. Ryan felt for a pulse, scrambling frantically to find any heartbeat at all. Nothing.

He swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat, standing too quickly and stumbling backwards onto the staircase. He stared at the blood that had gotten on his hands and stared at his dead friend and stared at the small pool of dark red forming on the ground and then he bolted and ran to find somewhere he could lock himself up.

Oh god, what had he done?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mouse traps can't actually do that and I needed something to set off Ryan's breakdown.


	3. And Then There Were Seven

Miles Luna was by no means a brave person. This was true even on normal days; now that he was trapped in a building with an apparent serial killer, every little noise made him jump. He swore he could hear footsteps behind him and doors opening and shutting from around the corner and that he could see things shifting in the shadows, but any time he looked there was nothing.

  
_Come on, Miles,_ he told himself, pressing his back against a wall and taking a moment to collect himself. _You can do this. You just have to make it through the night. That’s all you have to do. That’s all._

  
He was supposed to be the funny one but this was the exact opposite of a situation he could just write off as a joke. He had watched someone die and was almost guaranteed to follow, and he wanted desperately to just be able to make this something to laugh at so that he at least wouldn’t be living out his last moments in fear. Something, anything to lighten the mood would be good.

  
_What better way to do that,_ he decided as he opened Lindsay’s office door in search of a weapon, _than to wear the Ruby Rose costume? I might still be terrified but at least I can look ridiculous in the meantime._

  
~~~

  
Ryan came to his senses to find himself backed against a wall.

  
His chest was heaving both with the exertion of having run so far and so fast and the panic settling in over having seen Gavin’s battered body lying in the stairwell.

  
His fault, it was his fault. It had to have been.

  
He curled in tighter on himself, pressing his palms into his eyes hard enough to make patterns appear behind the eyelids. It began to hurt but it was better than the images of Gavin and bruises and blood that kept flashing in his mind, and of Michael struggling to breathe as he writhed on the floor.

  
A door clicked. Startled, Ryan jumped up, puffy eyes darting around as he cautiously reached for the hammer he had found. He crept forwards, looking through the sound booth window only to see Miles sitting at the computer. Miles, apparently, had noticed him as well, as he jumped at the movement in his peripheral and yelled something Ryan couldn’t hear.

  
“Headphones,” he said, motioning for Miles to put them on so that he could be heard. Miles stared in confusion before a look of realization washed over him and he reached for the device.

  
“Why are you in there? And, Jesus, Ryan, you look like shit.” Miles said, eyebrows furrowed as he leaned towards the sound booth window. Ryan trembled slightly, fingers twitching around the handle of the hammer.

  
“Gavin’s dead,” he whispered, swallowing thickly.

  
“Wait-- how do you know?”

  
“I, um. I ran into him,” Ryan replied, not wanting to tell everything just yet. “Gavin’s dead and I’m worried it was my fault.”

  
“But… You’re not sure?” Now Miles just looked thoroughly lost. Ryan shook his head.  
“There’ve always been jokes about my murderous habits in games and my tendency to make threats and be cruel to characters. So many times, I’ve wondered what would happen if I acted on those impulses; I’ve wanted people dead so many times, I’m scared this is all happening without my realizing, that I’m the one responsible for all this.”

  
“But-- but how would you have done all this without knowing anything about it at all? I mean, you’ve gotta remember some part of it if this was really your fault, right?” Miles meant nothing by this but he was terrifying in how accurate he was with that. Ryan didn’t respond. He looked Miles up and down and frowned.

  
“Nice outfit?” Change of subject.

  
“Look, okay, I swear there’s a good reason for this. I wanted to make this funnier. It’s not funny at all, I know, but I feel better about the whole situation knowing that if I die tonight, at least people can laugh about the fact that I died in a Ruby goddamn Rose costume.”

  
Ryan shrugged. “Fair enough.” The thoughts came back and his face darkened again. “Miles, I need to ask you a favor. I need you to lock me in here.”

  
There was the confusion again. “Why?”

  
“If all of this really is my fault, I don’t want to be responsible for any other deaths. If I really am the murderer, nobody else has to die this way; if I’m not then the real murderer finds me and unlocks the door and I die and I stop having to remember tonight. There are no negatives to this.”

  
Miles looked conflicted for a moment before nodding and searching for the sound booth key. After some rooting through the drawers, he produced it from underneath a pile of papers and slid it into the lock.

  
“For the record,” he whispered, “I don’t think it was you.”

  
Ryan said nothing.

  
~~~

  
Gus didn’t look up at all; he hardly even registered the door opening. He was typing frantically and knew he should probably be on higher alert but his mind was on autopilot and he needed to finish what he was doing. It wasn’t until he heard her that he even realized Barbara was in the room.

  
“What was that?”

  
“I said, what are you working on?” Barbara repeated, peering over Gus’ shoulder. His chin dropped and he stared at the keyboard.

  
“The Podcast. I’m making sure I write something out so that in the very likely event I don’t make it out of here, the Podcast can at least continue with a set host each week. I can’t leave it to Gavin or to Burnie, obviously, or to you, so I’ll leave it to Geoff. I'd prefer to leave it to one of you three since you're on most often, but, well…” He trailed off, then continued, “If he doesn’t want to do it he can just pass it on to someone else but I trust him with it. And, well, I want to be able to have some last words for the community, too.”

  
Barbara nodded slightly, not really seeming to care. She lifted the bowling pin on Gus’ desk, turning it over in her hands a few times and testing the weight. “Hey, mind if I take this for self-defense?”

  
He glanced over for a second and shrugged, going back to typing. Barbara grinned and turned to leave. “Sweet.”

  
“And, hey, Barbara?” Gus called after her as she left. “Stay alive.”

  
He didn’t hear her whispered response.

  
“I will.”

  
~~~

  
Burnie slid to a halt as he came across Chris, who was frantically looking over his shoulder as he ran.

  
“Woah, woah! Slow down!” Burnie clasped Chris’ shoulder, only to draw back as he saw the smaller man flinch. “What’s going on? I haven’t seen you since we all split up.”

  
“I saw the killer,” Chris gasped out, doubled over.

  
“What?! Who was it?”

  
“I don’t know, they were wearing a skull mask and a leather jacket and they looked oddly familiar but I couldn’t tell who it was but, Burnie, they had a container of gasoline and I think they were going to kill me.” The words came out in a jumbled mess and Burnie’s face darkened.

  
“Well, at least we know what to look out for,” he muttered. He looked behind Chris, checking to ensure the murderer hadn’t followed. Chris stiffened in front of him as his gaze settled somewhere behind Burnie’s shoulder.

  
“Burnie, the killer is here.”

  
Burnie whirled around, pushing Chris behind him with one arm and reaching for his gun with the other. He didn't have time to grab it; the arrow released and zipped through the air and Burnie braced himself for pain that never came.

  
What he did get was a rough shove to the side and someone shouting his name in a voice that cut off before it even finished the second syllable. The arrow meant for Burnie’s chest lodged itself in Chris’ throat, blood gurgling in the wound as Chris tried to gasp in pain. Burnie stared with eyes wide and mouth agape as Chris hit the ground with a dull thud. Surprise quickly turned to rage and with one swift motion he pulled out the gun and aimed at the killer--  
Who was nowhere to be found.

  
His arms fell heavy at his sides and he stared at the black curtain where the skull mask had been just moments ago before kneeling beside Chris. He winced at the whistling sounds of Chris trying to take panicked breaths that only escaped through the hole in his neck, at the crackle or Chris’ blood bubbling in his lungs and out through his mouth.

  
Burnie pulled the arrow from Chris’ throat as gently as he could and as quickly as he could, pressing his hands to the wound in what he knew was a futile attempt to slow the bleeding. Pained whining broke through the wheezing as Chris’ fingers brushed weakly against the gun. Realization dawned on Burnie and his face twisted into a look of anguish, then a look of reluctant acceptance. Chris didn't have long to live, no, but he didn't deserve to live those last moments in more agony than necessary.

  
“Okay,” he croaked, reaching for the gun.

  
A bullet fired from an unsteady hand.

  
Chris stopped writhing.

  
Burnie cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how to write any of these people's personalities

**Author's Note:**

> I mentioned in the tags but please be aware as you're reading that this is not meant to be a word-for-word retelling of the series. It's a darker retelling that removes/replaces some elements in a way that makes it more like an actual murder mystery 'oh-god-we're-trapped-with-a-killer' feel. That said, there's still humor, just not as much of the over-the-top ridiculousness. By which I mean, none of the deaths are played for laughs, and a couple had to be changed. If anyone wants to know exactly what I plan to change then just ask and I'll put a list in the notes at the end of whichever chapter I post next.


End file.
